Village development plan and citizen participation

Baukultur in Weyarn

The Baukultur in Weyarn is such that comprehensive land management must precede the planning process. This means that the municipality must ensure the availability of land before it begins planning, and the planning process should not be left in the hands of private interests. In Weyarn, sustainable land policies form the foundations for Baukultur. The municipality has therefore come up with its own land policy model, based on the legal norms and programme requirements. This model means that Weyarn now has large land resources which can also be used for exchange purposes thus affording the municipality – in conjunction with land policy planning instruments – a great deal of freedom in its Baukultur practices.

The planning, on the other hand, is based on an open dialogue between those affected, experts and those politically responsible. This dialogue takes place within the regulatory framework of a mission statement that was developed in a participatory process and which, in turn, is based on a jointly developed stock-taking of the situation. Based on this, a village development plan was developed containing an extensive catalogue of measures. In it, Baukultur is one of many fields of action, all of which are accessible to citizen participation. Only goals that are developed as part of a participatory process can be realised in a politically sustainable manner.

The realisation that citizen participation makes decisions more sustainable may arise from the following Benedictine Rule (directed at the Abbot) which developed historically in the region: “If you have something important to decide, call everyone together. For it may be that the Lord has also imparted the grace of knowledge to the youngest among you”. The municipality of Weyarn has therefore created a developed two-pronged approach for citizen participation. Such programmes also exist in rural areas, even if in somewhat different forms, more often than one might think. The spatial planning and design quality that is appropriate for the location is supported by the constant involvement of a village and town planner, by the participation of the county architect in all building committee decisions, by the provision of free-of-charge building advice to all applicants for building licenses and their architects, by a free-of-charge energy consultancy service, and by the newly introduced guideline concerning barrier-free building and the option of multigenerational living.

This project was presented as part of the 2015 Baukultur Workshops in Frankfurt.

Completion Varying
Planning period 1999 to date
Developer Municipalities, associations, investors, private individuals
Architect / planner

Behnisch, Leupold, Team 4, Schwanck, Reichenbach-Klinke

Planning partners Users, stakeholders, citizens, experts, political decision-makers
Size / area 500 m² to 5 hectares
Uses Participatory culture
Rural spaces
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